Each Coming Night
by tartan robes
Summary: Perhaps, then, she is as old as she feels. A series of drabbles in response to 3x02. Heavy spoilers, of course.


_I'm doubtful Mrs. Hughes will be this season's death, but the second episode of this season had so much angst, it was practically asking for me to fic something for it. So, here, this is tedious and nonsensical, but I just wanted to expel a thing or two. Set after 3x02 and hopefully AU, it assumes that Mrs. Hughes does, indeed, have cancer._

* * *

_i._

The pantry lights are off. It's funny now, how easily lights snap on and off. Switches and the buzz of electricity, she can remember when it was all new. (Perhaps, then, she is as old as she feels.) It doesn't seem appropriate though; the light is too harsh. There are two candles set on her desk and she lights them carefully. Mr. Carson says nothing. She wonders if he's switched off too. (It would make two of them.)

The door is locked and when she turns around, his face seems wrong. It's not lit properly. The light settling in all the places it shouldn't, warming only hard lines. His lips are very thin; he's trying not to feel, she expects. He's trying to be a butler now. She doesn't blame him.

"You should have told me –"

"What, Mr. Carson? I'm dying. So are you. It happens."

"Not like this."

"I should hope not," she says. She tries to laugh, too, but the sound disappears in her throat.

She feels as though she's spitting out dust.

_ii._

"It's not fair," he finally says. And it is a pathetic, childish sentence. He loathes himself for it. He should be steady now, intelligent, reliable. He can't find the words. It's not fair.

(And he thinks this as he stares at the shadows on her face, the fragmentation between her eyes and mouth, valleys and mountains all painted black. He thinks about how she is nearly a decade younger than him and nearly a century wiser. He thinks of how her heart endured the war and the spaces between it, how it never gave in, never collapsed like his. He wonders when she became older than that, older than all of them. He swallows.)

"I never expected it to be," her lips twitch; she is trying to smile.

_iii._

And then the twitch becomes a tremble – becomes a sob.

She is thankful for the lack of light, for everything he can't see. She never meant for him to see this, the tears and the shaking hands folded over a quivering mouth. The lack of control. She never meant for him to hear the hiss, the heavy rattle of her keys as her legs lose balance. She never meant to be weak. She is weak. She never meant for him to see it.

_iv._

He is holding out an arm and touching his shadow to hers. He is holding out an arm and wrapping it around her shoulders. (He thinks of a garden party, a hundred, thousand years ago. He thinks of the way Lady Mary's face has crumbled too, of her cool face buried against his collarbone.)

(He wonders, too, his hands settling too naturally around her sides, what it would be like to hold a woman who is not crying. What it would like, a part of him presses, to hold her – just hold her. These thoughts are the sort that must be banished, ironed out into steam. He cannot abuse her vulnerability, cannot allow himself to twist his concern. But she rests her face against his chest and he wonders, he wonders.)

_v._

This is not proper, is the first thought that comes to her mind. A trained thought, the mark of a proper servant. He must be thinking it too. I am dying, is the second thought, and so she does not move. She presses her cheek hard into his chest and gasps until the tears go away and all there is his heart beneath her and his arms around her. She waits for her breath to even out; she tries to think of the last time she felt so warm.

_vi._

Here is what could happen: She could undo the button after button, let him touch, let him feel the stone sleeping over her heart. If he felt it, perhaps he'd understand. The undeniable weight, some knot of mortality. Perhaps he would understand.

Perhaps he could touch her as if he understood.

Perhaps her skirt could be discarded as well. Perhaps she could reach down between his legs. Perhaps those buttons could be opened up. Perhaps she could feel him, hard and heavy as the thorn in her breast. Perhaps she could feel his weight instead of hers. Heavy and hard, but warmer, full of life and not rotted to its core. Perhaps his weight could replace her own.

Perhaps she would understand.

(None of this happens. Propriety is never to be forgotten - especially not as one makes her own deathbed. It would be unbecoming at best, sinful at worst.)

_vii._

He should remove his arms, he thinks. But they're made of lead and he cannot remember how to move them, cannot remember them in any other position.

_viii._

Here is something else that could have happened:

"Tell me about the house we'd have retired in together," she could say and he would not protest it, not doubt it. For all their talk of working into their graves, for all their silence on the future, surely they both thought this to be the true inevitable. A small cottage house, a shelf of books, and a pot of tea. Surely this is what they both think, even now, even with the lump in her breast and the darkness in the room.

She would ask him to tell her and he would.

"We'd have gotten married, of course," he would say and she would feel his voice before she heard it. (Her head would still be against his shoulder; his fingers would still be knotted across her waist.) "It would only be proper."

She would try to joke. "You wouldn't mind being chained to this old thing?"

And there it would be, her head would tilt up and her breath would be on his neck. Her pulse would be against his skin. And he would wonder, despite himself, what it would be like to wake up to this every morning. And every morning after that.

"No," he would say, "I wouldn't have minded at all."

There would be silence; they would forget how to exhale.

"A small ceremony," he'd continue, voice hoarse and broken, "barely there at all. That's what you would have preferred."

"Aye," a pause and then, "and there would be enough style in that for you?"

She would tease him, but he wouldn't be able to laugh. (Laughing is too close to crying. He wouldn't trust himself. He never has.)

"Mrs. Hughes, you have enough style to carry us both."

And her head would settle again, over his heart, over his lungs. He would stare at the wall, at the dark rim of a picture frame and the reflection of a flame in the glass and tell her about the cottage, their cottage. The rooms, the books on the shelf and kinds of tea in the morning, the kinds of wine at night.

(This does not happen either.)

_ix._

It's harder for her to breathe. Her palms are pressed into his ribs and his chin is resting against her skull. She does not think about how well they fit together, how well she wants them to fit together.

She must not think of things that cannot be. Not now. Especially not now.

_x._

Or perhaps:

"Pretend it's Christmas. Tell me about Christmas this year. Tell me what we'd do," she would say.

"We'd dance," he'd say.

"I don't dance."

"Mrs. Hughes, you have always danced remarkably well." (He would think of all those times she had been turned in Lord Grantham's arms. He thought of the few times they've danced, in between beats. Of the arrangement of her hair, the curve of her smile, and the comments partly whispered into the air between their lips.)

"The secret, Mr. Carson, is to dance very little." A pause. "I'm not as highly demanded as you are. Between the Dowager Countess, Lady Grantham, Mrs. Crawley, and your beloved Lady Mary, you wouldn't have time for me anyway."

"There would always be time for this," his voice would be too small, "for you." (And she would wonder if there would only be time for her – for them – now, when there was no time left at all.)

"Perhaps," it would be better to sigh, not argue, "once all the glasses have been gathered and the tables put away."

"There'd be no music then."

"You could sing."

He would sniff, but not move his head, his arms, not move away. "I do not sing, Mrs. Hughes."

Perhaps he'd feel her smile into his suit. "I've heard you sing, Mr. Carson, I know you can."

Silence then. He would not be able to promise her a song, not even then, never then. He would think of powdered faces and harsh lights. He would wonder if he should tell her, tell her about the music halls and the sins and the waste, the decades he lost to fools. It wouldn't matter; there wouldn't be enough time. They were different people once. (He could ask her about Scotland, about Joe Burns, about her sister, but what would any of it amount to?) They are not those people now. What would it matter? What would it change?

She would accept it though, the silence. She would ask for nothing. (What could she ask for? What could she hope to receive?)

(She wants to say so many things. She wants to ask him about Christmas, about the cottage. She wants to undo buttons and unfasten hooks. The motions lie paralyzed in her fingertips. The words jumble together into nothing. She does none of these things. She asks him none of this.)

_xi._

This is what she does say, her body bent and leaning against his, her face wet and her throat raw: "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry," she says, "I never meant to appear so foolish."

Perhaps she is imagining it or perhaps his hands do tighten at her sides.

"You never have," he says.

_xii._

(She ought to say something, ought to be able to form things other than thank yous and apologizes. Composure. Decency.

_I am dying._

She could tell him now. She ought to, ought to tell him she loves him. Perhaps that's the wrong word. Housekeepers don't love. But she loves him as much as she was ever meant to love. She doesn't know, will never know, in what sense she means this by. It might not be much. It is probably not much at all. But it's all she can give him. Especially now.

It is probably nothing at all.

But she cannot give him the cottage; she cannot give him a dance. She has a voice that no longer works and lungs she no longer trusts and a lump instead of a heart, a body rotting from the inside out. _I am dying_.

She has nothing at all.)

_xiii._

What she says is: "Thank you, Mr. Carson."

One more moment, one more. Memorize the beat of his heart and the feeling of his arms, one more moment, one last moment.

"I'm feeling rather tired now," she says and hands are unclasped and walls are rebuilt. Her face is dry. She steps back. (Their fingertips twitch, aching to speak. They both ignore it. It's for the best.) "I ought to sleep, I think. I'd like to sleep."

He is tilting his head and she knows him, she knows him. She knows how to read his silences.

"I don't fear not waking up, Mr. Carson," she says. "Do you?"

"And so she shalln't fear for me either," she murmurs and allows herself one more touch, her fingertips against the back of his palm. (Thin veins, she wonders if she could measure his life, measure what's left of hers. Would knowing make it any better?)

"Would you walk me up, Mr. Carson?"

_xiv._

She blows out the candles.

_xv._

Even the staircase is hard, the steps daunting and unfamiliar.

They both think, placing one foot above the next, they both wonder: what would it be like to wake up tomorrow? To hold her tomorrow morning? To feel his pulse tomorrow night?

_xvi._

There's no time.


End file.
